


and be known in its aching

by plinys



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Amnesia, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 07:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: And when Eddie finally wakes the fuck up, he still looks at Richie as though he’s a stranger.[or: a post-canon fix-it where they save Eddie, but he doesn't remember who Richie is, and somehow that hurts more than losing him ever could.]





	and be known in its aching

**Author's Note:**

> me, unable to decide if i want to write an amnesia fic or a road trip fic? why not both!

They did it.

They saved the day.

And nobody had to die.

They were the heroes that the world would never hear about.

This was the part where everything was supposed to get easier, where he was supposed to remember how to breathe, where he was supposed to go back to his life and act like nothing had ever happened. That was the plan that everyone else was functioning under. 

Somehow managing to figure out how to be _ normal _people in the aftermath of all of that. 

Whereas Richie…

Richie was sitting in a hospital still in _ fucking _Maine waiting for the only person he’s ever truly loved to wake up. 

There’s a steady beating of a heart monitor to keep him company. Proof that Eddie is alive, that - despite the ill fitting hospital gown, the bandages on his chest and face, and all the machines he’s hooked up to - that he’s alive. 

That Richie had done just enough to save him. 

_ Alive, alive, alive _.

He hasn’t really left the hospital since they finally let him into Eddie’s room. Journeying down to the kitchen for meals, drawing stares and worried glances from the nurses too polite to kick him out even when they notice the dark circles under his eyes. 

He can’t help it.

The fear is still there.

The fear that if he goes away, that if he leaves, that Eddie might disappear right before his eyes. 

So he sits and waits.

He’ll wait forever if he has to. 

There was a moment a few days ago, a brief moment of lucidity, where Eddie had woken up long enough to hold a conversation with his doctors, to express concerns about what medicines were being pumped into his system and list a large number of allergies, before his eyes had shifted away from the doctors to Richie. 

Richie had tried to smile. 

Had tried not to panic, not when Eddie looked at him as if he didn’t have a clue who he was looking at. 

“It’s a miracle that you survived,” the doctor tells Eddie.

_ A miracle _, they all say, over and over again as if it might make those words true. 

It doesn’t feel like a miracle to Richie. 

Not when Eddie blinks at him in confusion and says, “Who the fuck are you?” 

The doctors all insist that this is normal, confusion upon first waking up, that comatose patients often experience brief memory loss upon returning to the waking world, a mixture of the drugs and the trauma and that surely with a little bit more time, some more rest and care, that everything will be back to normal. 

But he does wake up.

Eventually.

No more slipping between moments of lucidness.

No more constant influx of drugs in his system.

And when Eddie finally wakes the fuck up, he still looks at Richie as though he’s a stranger. 

*

“He doesn’t remember anyone okay, it’s not just me fuck,” Richie says into the phone. A part of him wishes it could be just _ him _. That maybe this was the universe's sign that Richie was never going to get anything close to happiness. “None of us, none of what happened, nothing about fucking Derry.” 

Bill lets out a soft noise, a noise of _ pity _. 

Richie hates that more than anything. 

“Maybe this is a good thing,” Bill says, though the line. “What I wouldn’t give to just forget all the nightmares.” 

He has the nightmares too.

Curled up in a hospital chair or in a cheap motel bed, the way panic claws at his chest, something that he can’t stop. That he’ll never be over, despite the quick phone conversations he has had with his therapist of the last few days, and his new increased zoloft prescription. 

There’s some things they won’t ever be over.

Maybe forgetting wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. 

“He doesn’t remember his _ wife _ either,” Richie says, the word carrying a bitter note. “I shouldn’t feel happy about this? I know I shouldn’t be fuck, I can’t help but feel a little bit-”

“Relieved,” Bill finishes for him.

Understanding in spite of everything. 

Richie’s eyes settle back on the hospital room, the door closed, his conversation quiet enough that he hopes that it won’t carry through. Stuck thinking about the man on the other side of the door. 

Eddie remember his own name, all the medicines that he usually takes, and how to tie his shoes. He remembers everything he needs to in order to be _ Eddie Kaspbrak _. 

He just doesn’t remember anyone else. 

Richie’s voice is smaller than it’s ever been when he speaks, “Maybe you’re right, maybe it is a blessing.” 

*

He hadn’t thought about it at the time.

Desperate to be able to stay in the room.

Just a little white lie.

One that he thought would be laughed off when Eddie eventually came to. 

So he doesn’t think about it until the doctor slips up and says, “You’re lucky that your husband is here looking after you.” 

For so many days he had been used to Eddie looking at him with confusion and just a little bit of distrust, so it catches Richie off guard when his mind is already going into panic mode at the doctor’s words and Eddie turns to look at him with such soft and apologetic eyes. 

He waits until the doctors have stepped out to speak, voice soft, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” 

“How could you,” Richie says. 

Wanting to spit it all out, to admit that it’s all a lie, but so afraid that it will mean no longer having Eddie’s eyes on him. No longer have his brow furrowing in a desperate attempt to try and remember something. 

“You have fucking amnesia, Eds, not like you’d remember me.” 

“Richie,” he says, concerned still. 

But the name still sounds unfamiliar on his tongue and Richie can’t keep sitting in this room listening to the heart monitor beating and have Eddie looking at him like _ that _. 

“I need a cup of coffee,” Richie says, pushing up out of the chair and hurrying out of the hospital room without looking back. 

Hospital coffee never tastes any good, only just better than gas station coffee, but still swipes his credit card in exchange for the small cup and takes the long way back to Eddie’s room as if that will delay the inevitable. 

This in turn takes him past the nurses station, and he smiles at the girls that he has seen too often over the last few days, tipping his coffee cup in their direction. 

“Mr. Tozier,” a doctor calls out, stilling Richie in his tracks.

A part of him is thankful for the excuse to take longer to go back to Eddie’s room. Another part of him knows that whatever news the doctor is going to give him, whatever news he wanted to give him when Eddie was not around, can’t possibly be good.

They’ve had these discussions before, Richie always refusing to say exactly what happened, because there’s no way he could say _ oh yeah Eddie was stabbed my an alien clown that was a giant spider at the time _without sounding like he had gone on some insane drug trip.

Honestly, Richie wishes sometimes that all of this could just be explained away as some crazy drug trip. 

“You know I can’t say,” Richie says, “I won’t.” 

The doctor frowns. The last time they’d had this conversation the doctor had made his assumptions clear. After all, this was _ Maine _the amount of people that came in as the victims of racist or homophobic hate crimes was a higher number than it ought to be, and that the shame of saying something about it might be a tough burder to bear.

Richie had let the assumption continue. 

Just like he used to when he was a kid sitting in the principal’s office with a split lip again. 

Far easier than the truth. 

“Many times, in cases such as these,” Eddie’s doctor explains. “When the trauma is too much, the brain tries to forget everything connected with that trauma. His wounds are healed, it’s his _ mind _that still needs to heal.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m going to discharge your husband in the morning,” he continues. “It’s my personal suggestion that you take him back to the home you share, back to a familiar surrounding, and call a therapist that he used to be comfortable with, because as far as all our tests can confirm. Other than scars that will never fade, he’s perfectly healthy.” 

It’s all in his head. 

Of fucking course it is.

It’s fitting in a way, Eddie has always been too caught up in his head for his own good.

“Fucking hypochondriac.” 

*

“Do you think coming back to Derry would help him remember,” Bev says, softly into the phone. She’s been extra _ soft _with him lately. “It helped us all before, when we came back all the memories clicked back into place and-”

“I’m not going back there,” Richie says. “I can’t, not even for Eddie.” 

*

It’s a forty-seven hour drive from Maine to LA, a part of him wanted to see if he can make it the whole forty-seven hours without stopping for the night, get them back there in only a few days. But even as he maps out the trip he knows that it is impossible to make it all in one stretch. That they will need to rest at some point, that there’s no way sitting in a car for forty-seven hours straight will be good for Eddie’s back and- 

“I’m sorry.” 

He’s heard those words so much over the last few days that Richie swears they’ve become his least favorite words in the entire English language. 

Richie stops explaining their drive, explaining how he plans to make fourteen hour days and how they’re going to have to limit themselves to only a few rest stops, he stops it all at the sound of Eddie’s voice.

They shouldn’t be like.

Eddie should be giving him some shit, calling him a pussy for not wanting to do all forty-seven hours in one go, not looking at Richie with those big apologetic eyes and saying that he’s _ sorry _.

Sorry for not remembering who he is.

As if apologizing again still change anything.

“Stop fucking saying that,” Richie says, turning away from Eddie and back to the road. 

He’s going to drive them to LA.

The thought of that is the only thing keeping Richie going at this point. 

“I feel like I should be offering to help drive or something,” Eddie continues. 

“Like hell,” Richie replies. “This is an expensive fucking car and you got into a car accident a few weeks ago and-”

“I was in a car accident?” 

It’s a slip up. Another thing that he’s not supposed to be mentioning

. But he can see that Eddie clings to this new piece of information. He knows even less than the doctor’s did about what happened to himself so of course he has questions, but Richie can’t bring himself to answer any of those questions. 

“Yeah,” Richie says, because there’s no use in denying it. “A minor one, that’s not why you’re all… You know.” 

Eddie’s hands rub at his chest at those words, as if feeling some sort of phantom ache. 

“What happened?”

“I don’t really know,” Richie admits. “I guess, you were on the phone with Mike, ran a red light or something, it was a minor accident.” 

“Enough to make you not trust me with the car,” Eddie points out. 

“It’s an _ expensive _car,” Richie stresses. 

He doesn’t have to look at Eddie to know that he’s frowning.

Richie remember all of Eddie’s quirks now, all the things he had forgotten due to time, it all came back after a few days in Derry. Which is why he knows that Eddie is frowning at him, and trying to piece together all the things that Richie still refuses to say. 

“It’s not like we could’ve flown anyways,” Richie says. “You hate planes.” 

“Not the _ planes _,” Eddie says, because of all things this is what he remembers. “It’s the airports. Have you ever thought about unsanitary those security checks are, everyone putting their shoes and bags all together and not to mention all the people you’re trapped in a confined space with recycled air with for hours, no doubt spreading whatever illness they have all around.” 

There he is.

That’s the Eddie he remembers. 

“See forty-seven hours of driving doesn’t sound so bad in comparison, right?” 

He doesn’t look back to Eddie after he speaks. Focuses on the road, because that is easier than focusing on the reality of spending forty-seven hours in a car with the man that he loves, a man that doesn’t even know who he is. 

There’s a long beat of silence, like Richie might finally have peace, but then Eddie speaks up again, the confusion still there - “Who is _ Mike _?” 

*

“You know, it’s a shame my phone was lost in the _ incident _.” 

Eddie doesn’t seem to like the silences that fall between them. Desperate to fill them by talking. A stark contrast from all those days that Richie had sat by his bedside wanting Eddie to wake up and say literally anything, now all Richie wants is for Eddie to shut up and let him drive them in peace. 

Richie doesn’t say that. 

Instead he lets out a non-committal noise prompting Eddie to continue.

Currently he is in possession of Richie’s phone. He doesn’t know the password so he can’t get past the home screen, but that doesn’t stop him from changing the music every so often, apparently one of the things that Eddie’s memory had retained with his shitty taste in music. He has a habit of letting a song play for the first few bars before deciding that he doesn’t like it and skipping to the next song. 

Eddie doesn’t know his password, he tried to get it earlier, locked them out of the phone and unable to change the music for five minutes and since then stopped trying. 

(“You should save my fingerprint.” 

“You can’t remember who I am, but you can remember that iPhones recognize fingerprints?” 

“Don’t be like _ that _, Rich, you know I’m fucking trying.”)

The song changes again, and Richie resists the urge to steal his phone back, because at least flipping through the music distracts Eddie from asking about what he can’t remember. Instead he reaches over and slides his own thumb against the lock, before saying - “I’ve got apple music, just type in whatever the fuck you want and be done with it.” 

He expects Eddie to do just that.

To finally pick a song.

But he doesn’t move. 

Doesn’t say anything.

And when Richie glances his way to see why not, he catches what Eddie is looking at instead. His home screen, or more specifically, the photo under all the mess of app icons. A selfie they had snapped, joking around at the Jade before everything went to complete shit. A photo of the two of them, a little drunk, happier than he’d been in a long time, because he had finally remember enough to be happy. 

There had been a moment there, before everything went awful, sitting around that table when he had looked to his left and saw Eddie and all those _ feelings _that had been pushing down for years suddenly came back full force.

All those feelings he’s still pushing down. 

“Come on, Eddie Spaghetti, just pick a fucking song.”

That snapped him back to himself enough that finally he opens up the music app and goes about searching up whatever it what that he wants to listen to, but not before he mutters in a tone that is almost familiar enough that Richie could pretend nothing has changed - “Don’t call me that.” 

*

Of all the complaints Richie expects Eddie to have about the cheap motel that he got them for the night “Why are there two beds?” is not one of them. 

But that’s exactly what he asks. 

The very present confusion still there as he glances between the two twin beds, both covered in horrible patterned bedding. 

Because he still thinks that they’re-

That he is- 

Richie shrugs, aiming for casual. “I thought it might make you more comfortable since…” _ None of this is real _. “Since you don’t remember.” 

Eddie’s face scrunches up at that. Displeasure, but he’s biting his tongue against saying too much. It’s almost funny how ever since nearly losing Eddie, Richie seems all that much more able to remember every little odd quirk about him. 

“The doctor said that I needed to things that are familiar to get back into my fucking cycle or something and I can’t do that if you keep pushing me away,” he speaks too quickly, tripping over his own words, frustration with this whole situation clear. 

“Fucking shit,” Richie hisses. Running a hand through his hair, and letting out a sharp sigh. Doing anything he can to avoid Eddie’s gaze. 

“If my memory loss really is tied to post-traumatic stress over an event that you won’t even fucking tell me about,” Eddie continues. “Then maybe pretending that everything is normal and not a whole fucking mess will make it all go back. Maybe if we just-”

“I don’t want to fucking sleep with you, Eddie.” 

That shuts him up.

Eddie staring at him in shock.

As if that was the last thing he was expecting to hear. 

Richie can tell that his words hurt, but can’t bring it in him to take them back. To pretend that everything is _ normal _and give Eddie’s fucked up brain some version of a happily ever after to latch onto.

He should have told the truth from the beginning, but it was too late now, and… 

“Go to sleep, Eds. We can talk in the morning.” 

He turns away without waiting for a reply, because he can’t look at Eddie. Not right now. Not without feeling that _ guilt _coming back. 

But not before hearing a quiet, half hearted, “Fuck you.” 

*

He gasps, jolting up in bed, the panic there thrumming through his veins making it hard for him to breathe and-

It’s not the first time that Richie has woken up from a nightmare.

Probably won’t be the last.

If he closes his eyes he can see it all again so horribly. The blindness, his vision spotty from the deadlights. Eddie over him, shaking him, saying that he did it, that everything was going to be okay and then the blood, too much blood, not his blood and- 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

He tucks his hands against his sides. 

Tries to control the shaking with little success. 

This had been easier when they were in the hospital, when Richie was able to just look up at a heart monitor and confirm that Eddie was still alive. Even without him still comatose, Richie had been able to at least know that the nightmares that had constantly plagued him since that moment in the deadlights, that moment when he almost lost Eddie, weren’t real. 

Now…

Now all he can do is look across the space of their hotel room, and try to listen for the sounds of Eddie breathing.

For the proof that they both made it out of those sewers. 

Eddie’s breath has always come a little raspy in his sleep, something Richie now remembers from all those childhood sleepovers, from when he used to sneak in through Eddie’s window and wake him up in the middle of the night just to talk about life, or the universe, or everything. 

He listens for that sound now. 

Only letting out his own relieved breath when he hears it. 

Eddie’s alive.

Eddie’s in the hotel room with him.

Eddie’s probably going to end up hating him when he gets all his memories back.

But that’s a thought for the morning, for now, Richie lets himself be content with the proof that despite the universe trying to take Eddie away from him, at least, here and now, he is alive. 

*

He finally stops ignoring his manager’s calls that morning. 

She’s not happy with him. Not that he blames her given the circumstances. He’s read the articles about himself, heard what all the people were saying: that he was a druggie, that he was ruining his career, that there’s no going back from this. 

“I want you to cancel my tour,” Richie says, cutting her off. 

He can hear her long and disappointed sigh, but the truth is that they both knew this was coming. 

“Do you want your entire career to go down the drain?” 

He shrugs. Knowing she can’t see, shifts his grip a bit tighter on the mug of hotel coffee that he’s made for himself. He ducked out to the _ free breakfast _as soon as it opened, leaving Eddie alone to sleep, unable to stay in that room any longer than absolutely necessary.

“Come on, Rich, talk to me. What’s really going on?”

“It’s complicated.”

“For fuck’s sake,” she replies.

He can easily see her eye roll. 

“Look I’m in fucking Philadelphia, with an amnesiac in my car, and I need to drive us back to LA because he’s fucking afraid of planes and fuck-” 

“Is this a new bit you’re trying.” 

“No, it’s my fucking life.” 

Another long sigh.

Disappointment.

Who hasn’t he disappointed lately? 

“Give a closing show,” she offers. “You could make the Chicago date, show up, tell your jokes, add something about personal matters to take care of. We can call it your farewell show.” 

_ Farewell show _.

As if this really is the end. 

Rationally he knows that in time he could return to stand up, everyone loves a good comeback story. 

But for now… This would be a farewell. 

Giving up his dream for fucking Eddie Kaspbrak.

Why doesn’t that seem like the worst thing ever? 

“I’ll think about it,” he says. 

Though he’s already made up his mind. 

“Make the right decision, Richie.” 

*

He’s not sure why he’s smiling. 

It’s dumb, so fucking dumb, but of course, of all the things that Eddie remembers about himslef, a mile long list of food allergies would be one of them. Eddie’s prattling them off to the poor waitress, gluten and cashews and yellow food coloring and the list goes on and on. The girl nodded again and again, but clearly not actually taking anything in.

When she catches Richie’s eyes he shoots her a sympathetic smile and says - “He’ll take a salad, but with nothing on it.” 

Eddie turns away from the waitress to look at him. “Oh fuck you, Richie.” 

“Wait, fuck,” he replies. Not sure why riling up Eddie more seems like a good idea, but he’s missed this. On some fundamental level he’s always missed this. “Are we sure lettuce is safe to eat again?”

There’s a panicked look on Eddie’s face. 

The same look he had once at the prospect of amputating their friend’s waist.

Familiar, so fucking familiar. 

His voice pitches up, frantic and - “Why the fuck would lettuce not be safe!?”

“He has amnesia,” Richie says, to the waitress, ignoring Eddie’s outburst, as if that explains everything. 

It doesn’t but...

“Our lettuce is safe,” the waitress replies in return.

Which, good enough. 

“Can we get back to the fucking lettuce,” Eddie says. “Why the fuck wouldn’t we be able to eat lettuce?”

“Mad Rabbit Disease,” Richie replies, like it’s the punchline of a joke. 

“You’re not fucking funny, Tozier.” 

“That’s not what your mom was saying last night.” 

“Oh fuck off!”

“He’ll take the lettuce,” Richie tells the waitress, before waving her off, already having given his order before Eddie went on his rambling. 

There’s no reason to keep that poor girl around listening to their bickering. 

Richie turns back to Eddie, ready to pick back up where they dropped off, ready to see just how much he can rile Eddie up before he fully snaps, but all the looks of teasing disgust have slipped off of Eddie’s face, and instead in their place is a look of concern. 

Sadness.

That’s a new emotion.

One that comes with the memory loss, surely. 

Or the years apart. 

Whatever happened to Eddie that neither of them can remember.

“What is it then? Do I have something on my face?”

He doesn’t expect Eddie to say - “Why aren’t you wearing your ring?”- but that’s what he says.

Richie’s confusion is genuine. 

“My what?”

“Your wedding ring?” Eddie explains, his voice pitching upwards in nervousness. “Because fuck, okay, I’ve been trying to figure this out since the doctors called you my husband, and I know I don’t remember any fucking thing, but there’s this like nagging feeling that something is wrong and…”

Of course, it’s his lies coming back to bite Richie in the ass.

Should have known it would be sooner rather than later.

He purposely moves his hand off of the surface of the table, tries to ignore the way Eddie’s eyes follow the movement. 

“Of all the things that I fucking remember one of them is the number of a divorce lawyer,” Eddie makes a small noise, a cross between a laugh and pain. “I called them using the hotel phone while you were out in the morning, and they knew me right away, I couldn’t fucking - I couldn’t ask but we’re we… Are we getting a divorce?”

“Eddie-”

“Because! Then maybe this is your lucky fucking day right! I don’t remember shit, all that much easier to just drop me and not look back,” Eddie continues. “I know I was neurotic before this whole mess and now that I can’t actually remember anything it’s not making anything better, but fuck if you just wanted a divorce you could have left me in that fucking hospital and not-”

“We’re not getting a divorce,” Richie says cutting him off. 

Eddie pauses, his confusion clear. “Then why aren’t you-”

Might as well get this over with.

“We’re not married.” 

He can see it so clearly when Eddie’s shock slips away to confusion and then to anger. He’s so fucking angry.

“Why the fuck would you lie about something like that,” Eddie finally asks, voice steady but the anger is clearly there, his hands clench into fists against the diner’s table. “The doctor’s fucking said that you have to put me in familiar surroundings and tell me the truth, so that my memory might come back, and now you’re telling me that you have been lying to me this whole fucking time?” 

Richie knows that he deserves this but _ fuck _. 

“I still don’t even know what fucking happened to me,” Eddie continues. “You won’t tell me whatever it is that my mind keeps wanting to keep me from remembering, and I thought that was maybe because you wanted to protect me, but how do I know you’re not some fucking monster that tried to kidnap an amnesiac and-”

“Look I didn’t know that you would wake up without your memory,” Richie snaps. “I panicked and knew that you wouldn’t want them to call _ her, _and fuck I figured when you’d wake up, you’d make some fucking joke about it, not that you wouldn’t… Fuck. This whole thing is so fucked up.” 

Eddie looks away from him. 

Hurt.

They’re both hurting so fucking much. 

“How do know you’re telling the truth? How am I supposed to trust you?” 

Richie lets out a small bitter laugh. “Yeah, I wouldn’t trust me either.” 

He knew it would all have to come out at some point, but he didn’t think that it would be like this. That the secrets he was keeping, secrets he was keeping to protect Eddie would hurt this much. 

They both stay silent. 

Unable to look at each other.

Unwilling to speak. 

Until their waitress returns setting their food out between them. 

And finally Richie breaks the silence, “Just eat your fucking salad, okay?” 

Eddie’s voice is smaller than it was moments before, the fight having seemed to disappear from him, “You never told me what was wrong with the lettuce?”

*

Eddie doesn’t leave.

He gets back in the car, and they get back on the road.

Even though neither of them are talking and they’re both mad at each other and Richie feels it, guilt too much to handle.

He knows he should say something but he can’t figure out what and -

“I loved you,” Eddie says, voice barely heard over the music Richie had turned on to cover up the silence. “I think that’s why I trusted you, because I felt like I loved you.” 

Richie has been waiting over twenty-seven years to hear those words.

But not like this. 

Never like this.

“And now?”

“I don’t know anymore.” 

*

“Who is she?”

“Who?”

“The person I’m actually married to.” 

Riche’s hands tighten against the steering wheel. “Myra? I don’t know, we never fucking met.” 

From the corner of his eye he can see Eddie trying out the name on his lips, testing to see if it sounds familiar. 

“What were you then? My dirty little secret? My mistress?”

Richie grimaces. 

They were both filled with _ dirty little secrets _. 

“Pretty sure you don’t call it a mistress when the other person’s a man,” Richie points out. 

Not the answer.

Not even close. 

“We weren’t together,” Richie says. Even though the words, the truth hurts him. “We’re just friends.” 

It had been years since they had even really been _ friends _. 

Eddie makes a small hum of acknowledgement, and turns back to look at the window, like the conversation had never even happened. 

*

They don’t talk much for the rest of the day and by the time they make it to Indianapolis and Richie gets them another hotel, with two beds, and as much space between them as physically possible, all Richie wants to do is lay down in bed pretending to sleep and wish for this whole day to be over.

Which, because the universe is out to get him, is about the time his manager calls him again.

He knows why she’s calling. 

The Chicago date is tomorrow and that’s only three hours away, but it’s also _ out of the way _ and Richie isn’t sure that he could deliver jokes right now anyways. Not ones that wouldn’t fall flat and leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Not without rushing off the stage again.

And then there’s still the matter of Eddie.

Eddie, who won’t even fucking look at him. 

It’s the third time of Richie’s phone vibrating against the hotels night stand, that Eddie eventually speaks, “Just answer your fucking phone.” 

“It’s just my manager,” Richie says. “She’s used to me ignoring her.” 

Eddie frowns at that. “You shouldn’t.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Richie lets out an annoyed breath. “They want me to put on one last fucking show, but I can’t and I told them that and look I’m not very fucking funny at the moment so it’ll just be a waste of everyone’s time.” 

“You should do it.” 

“Did you just ignore everything I said?”

Eddie shakes his head, and says, “I want to see you.”

And somehow that settles it all.

The next time his manager calls he picks up the phone, stepping out of the hotel room to take the call, and trying not to focus on the way Eddie’s eyes follow him until he is out the door. 

*

He can’t sleep.

A mix between fear of the nightmares and pre show jitters. 

But he listens to Eddie breathing. 

_ Alive, alive, alive _.

And that’s enough for now. 

It’s not as if they have a long drive tomorrow.

At least there is that. 

*

He had done his best to explain the _ situation _ to his manager, vague not answers and the bomb of _ so hey fun fact I’m gay and in love with the guy I’m bringing, also he has amnesia so just pretend you know him _.

Because what’s another lie. 

If it makes this a little bit easier for both of them. 

At least she plays a long. Shoots Richie an annoyed look when Eddie isn’t looking her way. But she greets him like an old friend, shows him where he can watch the show from off the stage with the rest of the staff, before tossing Richie to the _ wolves _that are his usual staff and stylists. 

This part is at least familiar.

As much as he doesn’t want to be here.

As much as he isn’t sure that he can do this anymore. 

It’s familiar. 

It’s a rhythm and cycle that Richie is used to. Easy to fit back into his old role, to give his make up artist shit, to skim cue cards and try to remember ‘his’ jokes. 

Except it’s a little different too.

Because Eddie is watching him. 

He looks a bit less angry today than he did yesterday, but Richie assume that is just because there are other people in the room. It’s easier to pretend to be normal with other people around. 

He expects it all to fall away the second that they’re left alone.

Braces himself for the impact right before he goes to head out on stage.

But when Eddie looks at him it’s not with the anger and hurt that has been present for the last two days. 

Instead, it’s something softer - “Fuck, why do I have the urge to kiss you for good luck?”

Richie knows he should grin, make a joke back, but he can’t manage it.

Everything is so fuckign fragile. 

“Did I ever do that? Before?”

“Once,” Richie says, remembering a time before they both left Derry. A joking comment. A school talent show and Eddie embarrassed and Richie’s heart beating so loud in his chest that he had to pretend to be okay with the _ joke _. 

A kiss on his cheek.

For luck.

Not unlike the one Eddie presses to his cheek now.

Giving into a remembered impulse. 

But where before he had said _ good luck _, this time all Eddie says, “Don’t fuck this one up.” 

*

“Do your jokes always suck,” Eddie asks, he’s sitting on the bed in their hotel room, eating take out straight from the box. 

His box, that Richie wasn’t allowed to touch, but still. 

On the _ one _bed in the room.

Because his manager (and the universe) was punishing him for this whole mess.

“I don’t-”

“Write your jokes,” Eddie finishes for him. “Yeah, I know.” 

“You remember _ that _,” Richie says. “Why can’t that be one of the things that you forgot?”

Eddie shrugs, stuffing more noodles in his mouth instead of answering.

There’s a sense of peace about them. 

A sense that hasn’t been there the last few days and Richie doesn’t want to spoil it.

Still, he finds himself asking, in spite of himself - “What else do you remember?” 

Eddie closes his eyes, takes a moment to pause, like he really is trying to remember something, before he finally opens his eyes, and levels Richie a dead serious look - “I know that you’re a dumbass.” 

Richie laughs.

Honest and true.

Like he hasn’t laughed in ages. 

“Fuck, I missed you.” 

*

He had offered to take the floor. 

Offered to give Eddie space, but Eddie had turned the offer down, insisting that they’ve shared a bed before (a flicker of a memory maybe) and that they could share one again. 

Richie doesn’t mean to fall asleep so easily, but he didn’t sleep the night before and the post-show rush faded away into exhaustion. And despite his best efforts to remain on his side of the bed and give Eddie space, when he wakes up in the middle of the night it is with Eddie pressed close against him. Both of them in the middle curled up against each other. 

At first he’s not sure why he woke up, but then he hears it, the soft panicked noises coming from the man beside him.

He had hoped, foolishly, that without memories Eddie wouldn’t have to suffer through the nightmares that had plagued the rest of them. Clearly the universe had not been that kind to either of them. 

“Eddie, Eds, wake up,” Richie says, softly, shifting so that he can try to wake him up. “Wake up, it’s just a dream.” 

Richie sees it, the fluttering of his eyes, the panicked way he looks when they finally do open - Eddie looks terrified. 

Of all the things to remember. 

Eddie, awake now, scrambles forward to reach out for Richie. Finger pads rough against his cheeks, skimming down to his neck until it presses against Richie’s pulse point. Just a touch too hard, but it seems to do the trick because a second later Eddie lets out a sigh of relief and leans forward, resting his head against Richie’s for a moment. 

Richie holds tight onto Eddie’s nightshirt holding him in place - “It was just a dream.” 

“I know,” Eddie eventually say. His voice shaking slightly. “It doesn’t make any sense, it can’t be real right?”

“Right,” Richie agrees.

The lie burning in his throat. 

“It was about _ you _. I was going to lose you, because you were caught in these lights-”

“The Deadlights.”

Eddie stops, “What?”

“Headlights,” Richie says. 

Another lie.

Why can’t he just? 

“I just want to remember,” Eddie says, shifting slightly to put some space between them. 

Richie wants to pull him back. 

But he knows he doesn’t really have the right to, so he shifts back to give Eddie space as well. 

“Maybe it’s better than you don’t,” Richie says.

“I’m going to get the nightmares anyways,” Eddie points out. Tonight was clearly proof of that. “You’re not saving me from anything, Rich.”

He knows this is the moment of truth.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, moonlight streaming in through the windows, this is where he tells Eddie everything. 

Eddie’s still rambling, always desperate to get out as many words as possible. “I’ve known you since we were kids. I keep getting flashes of little things like that, but then everything goes terrible and fuck I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. I just want to remember something, I want to remember _ you _.” 

“I can’t have this conversation with the lights off,” Richie says, moving to shift away.

Because if he’s going to explain _ It _, he can’t do it when there are shadows surrounding them. 

But Eddie reaches out to stop him, holding onto Richie, keeping him in place.

And maybe the moonlight is enough, because he can see the desperation in Eddie’s eyes. “

“What happened to me, Richie,” he asks. “I feel it starting to come back, and I’m just missing… Something?”

“You nearly died,” Richie answers, before he can think to stop himself. “You were dying and everyone was telling me to leave, and fuck, I don’t know what I would do without you, Eds. I don’t-” 

There’s lips against his. 

Cutting Richie off. 

Startling him so much that for a second he forgets to kiss back.

Forgets how long he has been waiting for this moment. 

Eddie pulls back, “Fuck, sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I just rememeber… I’ve wanted to do that for so fucking long, and I almost never got to. You don’t have to kiss me back, fuck.” 

He won’t let Eddie second guess this.

Not when he’s wanted it for so long too.

Not when he nearly lost his chance too. 

So this time it is Richie that leans forward, pressing their lips together, holding Eddie close, because he’s here and alive and safe and for a moment it’s enough to just kiss the nightmares away.

  


*

They make it to Colorado, but Richie gets nervous driving at night, especially after the conversation they had the night before. The truth spilling out once Richie had been able to convince himself to stop kissing Eddie and turn on the light. 

“I could try,” Eddie offers, in much better spirits now.

Even if he still can’t remember anything.

He keeps holding Richie’s hand, the one that isn’t onto the holding onto the steering wheel. 

And fuck it, if Richie isn’t so gone on this man.

Hasn’t been gone on him for years, even without all of his own memories being there. 

“You’re an injured amnesiac,” Richie counters, “What if you fucking forget how to drive?” 

“If an evil alien clown from space couldn’t kill us, you really think my driving will?” 

“You know saying _ alien _ and _ from space _technically means the same thing,” Richie points out. 

“Oh fuck you.” 

“I’ll have to stop driving for us to do that, baby.” 

Eddie laughs at that, tugging his hand out of Richie’s to playfully slap at his shoulder.

He’d forgotten how easy this was. 

How easy it was to be in love with Eddie. 

Eddie, who reaches over to flick on the turn signal, the second the sign for an exit comes up, “You better make good on that promise, Tozier.” 

*

“We only need one bed,” Eddie cuts in, telling the hotel’s receptionist before Richie can even ask about what rooms they have available. 

And fuck, he feels like a teenager again.

All this nervous anticipation and want, so much fucking want. 

“You got plans for tonight,” Richie asks. Forgetting their audience for a moment. Unable to help the suggestive tone from slipping into his voice. 

Eddie laughs. 

Richie swears that might become his favorite sound. 

Maybe it always was. 

But when he sleeps, it’s softer, “I don’t feel comfortable sleeping alone… In case, the nightmares come.”

And doesn’t Richie know the feeling.

They get checked in quick enough, get up to a room that feels a little too big, too filled with dark corners where nightmares could be lurking. 

When they lay down for the night it is with the bathroom light left on, casting a small glow over the room, a small comfort in an otherwise discomforting world. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to sleep in complete darkness again, but with Eddie next to him it’s a start.

Of course, neither of them are actually sleeping. 

Both staring up at the ceiling, pretending the distance between them is okay, until finally Eddie breaks the silence. “I want to kiss you again?”

Richie hopes he doesn’t sound too desperate when he says, “Please.” 

They both roll towards each other, two magnets destined to pull back together time and time again, kissing before either of them can second guess it.

This time it’s not just to chase the nightmares away.

It’s so much more than that.

It’s years that have building up to this. 

Hands moving to push off sleep clothes, bodies closer together, gasping against each others mouths and Richie pulling back, just to make a promise to him, and to this moment - “I’m never going to let anything bad happen to you again.”

*

Suddenly the drive doesn’t seem so long.

The trip doesn’t seem so bad.

Richie tells stories from their childhood, stories that he only recently began to remember, and Eddie listens to him, comments when something, _ anything, _comes back to mind. 

It’s so normal.

And happy.

And for the first time in a lifetime Richie finally feels at peace.

Weight that has been on his chest since he was just a child, figuring himself out, in a world that had always been cruel to people that were even just a little bit different.

But here, in his car, driving through fucking Utah, with Eddie beside him… He doesn’t think that being different is the worst thing ever anymore. 

*

They sleep that night.

Just sleep. 

Tired from a long day of driving and a lack of sleep the night before. 

But Eddie presses every inch of himself close to Reddie, as if that will protect him from anything that comes at night. As if the two of them were made to press this close together. 

And Richie…

Richie is just so thankful to have this.

To be here.

To hear that raspy way Eddie breathes and knows that he is alive.

That they both are.

_ Alive, alive, alive _.

And that’s enough. 

*

They make it to Richie’s house.

Finally, after so long away.

The air is stale when he opens the door and Richie moves to open up every window he can, an apology for the mess spilling out from his lips. Certainly it’s not messy by Richie’s standards, but it probably is by Eddie’s and- 

Eddie, who is frozen in the doorway, taking the whole place in. 

“It’s so big,” Eddie says. 

“Yeah, well that’s what a Netflix deal and two national tours will do for you,” Richie laughs. “I’m not as well off as Bill but… You know. It’s a house.” 

“And so empty,” Eddie adds, softer. 

Richie knows what the place looks like.

It’s not as if he often has company over.

Really the only room that gets any real use is his bedroom, and the kitchen occasionally. 

“Better than a hotel, right,” Richie asks. 

He slips his phone out, shoots a message to the group chat that they finally made it back safe and sound. Replies to the messages of congratulations for surviving the drive. Ignores the messages from Bev asking if he’s talked to Eddie about _ his feelings _. 

When he looks up again Eddie is sitting on the couch, already having made himself at home.

Eddie fits in Richie’s space just right.

He always has. 

Richie breaks the silence between them. “There’s a guest room that can be yours as long as you want to stay here.” 

Eddie furrows his eyebrows when he looks up, confusion clear. Confusion that hasn’t been there for days. ‘Why the fuck would I stay in the guest room, Rich?”

“Right, yeah, okay.” 

This shouldn’t be awkward.

They’ve finally made it _ home _or to Richie’s home and… 

“Maybe you were right before,” Eddie says. 

“About what?” 

“Maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t remember everything,” Eddie continues. “Because I remember the most important thing.” 

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I remember loving you.” 

Eddie says the words like they are the easiest thing in the world. 

So open and unafraid. 

Richie’s breath catches in his throat. 

But Eddie continues, even when Richie can’t find the words to reply. “I wasn’t sure at first, I know my memories still aren’t all there, and I’m sure I never said anything when we were kids, but I remember you sneaking in through my window, and I remember my heart wanting to burst right out of my chest.”

“Eddie-”

“I remember falling for you and not being bold enough to say anything,” Eddie admits.

Admits the words Richie never could. 

‘That was my fear,” Richie says. “Not the clowns or monsters or the werewolf or the fucking Pomeranian-”

“The what?”

“That’s what It used against me,” Richie says. “My fear, of you finding out that I loved you. That I’ll always love you.” 

Telling the truth, it’s easier than anything else he’s ever done.

A weight finally off of his chest.

And Eddie looking at him like Richie is the best thing that he’s ever seen. 

“Now what are you afraid of?” 

“Losing you.”

*

(The memories come back.

Slowly and with therapy.

And with a little help from letter in the mail written by the one person that they couldn’t save.

“_ ... Be who you want to be, be proud. And if you find someone worth holding onto, never, ever, let them go. _”)

**Author's Note:**

> come be my friend on twitter: [ @plinys ](https://twitter.com/plinys)


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